‘Oh, yes!’ Robbie exclaimed, as if he’d just had his dearest wish granted.
’Good,’ Rafiq murmured. ‘Then you may show me to the room in which I am to sleep…’
‘Rafiq…’
Her one burst of protest was denied by a man intent on getting his own way. Lifting the hand wearing his ring to his mouth, he kissed it and murmured, ‘Hush,’ then gently let her go so he could turn his full attention on Robbie. His hand was offered to his son. Watching through a daze, she saw Robbie’s smaller hand disappear inside it. As the long fingers closed she felt something clutch at her heart. The pair began to move out of the room, man and boy linked by their hands and a genetic influence that was so strong it hurt.
Maybe she even groaned at the recognition, she wasn’t sure, but something made Robbie stop and turn his head to look at her. ‘Is something the matter?’ he asked frowningly.
‘No, of course not.’ She smiled. ‘I am just trying to decide whether to eat in the kitchen or go all posh and use the dining room.’
The diversion was an inspiration. Robbie’s eyes widened in dismay. ‘Not the dining room, Mum!’ he protested. ‘It’s all big and cold in there.’ His hand gave a tug at his father’s hand. ‘We can eat in the kitchen, can’t we?’
There’s your choice, big man, Melanie thought cynically. The boy, the trusting hand, the kitchen and the house. The arc of his silky black lashes curled against his high cheekbones as he looked down at his son.
‘The kitchen sounds perfect,’ Rafiq agreed.
‘Good.’ Robbie beamed. ‘I knew you’d want to. William liked the kitchen the very best—and this room, of course. Come on, let’s go upstairs to my room. You’ll like it…’
Robbie didn’t see his mother wince at his mention of William. He didn’t see Rafiq’s fleeting glance her way before he allowed himself to be pulled towards the stairs.
Later they sat at the scrubbed kitchen table, eating pasta turned to rubber, pretending to enjoy it. Rafiq had probably never eaten in a kitchen in his life before, Melanie mused. He had probably never eaten from anything but the best bone china, nor been forced to sleep in a draughty old bedroom.
Then she took that last thought back with an inner snatch when she recalled her bedroom at the farmhouse. It had been cold and draughty. The bed had been an ancient metal-sprung affair with a deep feather mattress and a propensity to creak when they…
She got up from the table in an agitated flurry, bringing two pairs of matching eyes shooting questions her way. She ignored them, moved to the sink with her plate, then just stood there driven into remembering the man and the bed and the way he had drawn her down upon it, his dark face wearing the intensity of what had taken him over. He had touched and tutored her, had slowly brought her to a yearning pitch at which she would rather have died than drawn back from accepting him.
But the bed—the bed had creaked and groaned like a guilty accomplice. The room had been so cold he had pulled the heavy eiderdown over them, cocooning them in warmth and the soft, heaving rush of their own sensual breathing. Flesh moving against flesh, scents stirring the senses. They’d remained there throughout a whole afternoon while her uncle and Jamie had been out in the barn, and the old farmhouse had rattled against an icy storm hitting its outer walls—while another storm beneath the eiderdown had been hot and sultry.
Someone touched her shoulder. She almost jumped in the air. It was Rafiq. She jerked away. He released a small sigh and turned her to face him.
Big; his chest was big, wide and deep and beautifully masculine. Her breasts sprang to life, tightening and tingling and sending messages down to other parts of her that droned with an ache she did not want to feel.
‘Where’s Robbie?’ she murmured, vaguely aware that they were alone in the kitchen.
‘Gone to find a video I am to watch,’ her son’s father replied, with just a hint of huskiness that told her he was touched by his son’s desire to share everything with him. ‘But I wanted to take this moment to apologise for my remarks earlier. You were right: William Portreath is not to be blamed. He was a good man. He loved my son. I can only thank him for taking care of Robert as wisely as he did. It is no wonder Robert misses him.’
She nodded, unable to speak. He believed she had been standing here thinking of their argument when in reality her thoughts had been lost in a different kind of place entirely. She ought to be ashamed of herself, but oddly she wasn’t. She was hot and hungry struggling not to close the two-inch gap between his chest and the tingling tips of her eager breasts.
‘Y-you can’t stay here. It wouldn’t be right.’ She managed the sensible sentence.
‘The decision has been made. I do not back down on my promises.’
‘To your son.’ It was bitter. ‘You are cynically using him to get your own way where I am concerned.’
‘To both of you,’ he insisted. ‘And cynical I may be, but the sooner we place this relationship on a permanent footing, the sooner we can give Robert what he needs.’
‘Stop calling him Robert,’ she snapped out impulsively.
‘It is his name,’ he insisted. ‘And why are you trembling?’
Melanie almost laughed out loud at the question. ‘Because I think I am going to fall into a flood of tears,’ she lied, instead of telling the truth—that she was longing to fall on him like a ravenous fool!
Though the tears weren’t that far away, she realised. Tears and desire. What a combination. Both ate away at self-control. She tried to move away; his hands pressed her closer. Two inches became a half an inch. Her trembling became a fine shimmer. Could he feel it? Yes he could feel it; his fingertips were moving lightly against her spine, as if to encourage it.
‘Please let me go now,’ she said a little desperately.
‘When you look at me.’